The Trial Voyage to America

Schefer, Leopold, 1784-1862Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 250K words
Chapters: 26

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Die Probefahrt nach Amerika by Leopold ScheferAuthor: Schefer, Leopold, 1784-1862,Language: German, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Jun 11, 2013

Editor's review

This work is a novella-length narrative by the German Romantic writer Leopold Schefer, built around a "trial voyage to America." Schefer long worked as a private tutor and travelled widely, and his prose blends the sentimentality and wit characteristic of nineteenth-century German literature. The book is short; its plot moves forward through the voyage and impressions of a foreign land, sketching the anticipation of travel while hinting at reflections on the relationship between home and the unfamiliar world. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it offers readers low-cost access to a less-translated corner of German literature. Read it as a slice of its era: notice how the narrator observes travel, and savour the tone of late-Romantic German prose. It suits readers interested in German literature, travel narrative, or nineteenth-century European imaginings of society, and works well as short material for German reading practice. Because the original is in German and dates from an early period, readers need some patience with older forms of expression.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century German literature who want to encounter works by authors outside the canon
Readers who enjoy travel narrative and impressions of foreign lands, and prefer shorter works
Learners practising German reading who need original material of moderate length
Readers studying European imaginings of America in the Romantic period

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking tightly plotted modern fiction with strong conflict
Readers with weak German who are unwilling to look up old vocabulary and syntax
Readers who need a Chinese translation or annotated edition for effortless reading

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the main line of the voyage, then go back and closely reread the narrator's observations and comments on the foreign land
Note unfamiliar older German expressions as you read and look them up together to build a feel for the language
Pair the reading with background material on nineteenth-century European travel literature to understand the work's context

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or German? Is it hard to read?

The original is in German, a free eBook from Project Gutenberg, with no Chinese translation. Schefer lived from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, and the language contains older expressions; readers at intermediate German level or above will find it smoother, while beginners will need a dictionary and should be prepared to read slowly.

What is this book mainly about?

The work follows a "trial voyage" to America, describing experiences and impressions along the way and conveying the narrator's feelings about distant places and home. It is closer to a short narrative essay than a plot-heavy novel, and serves as a sample of nineteenth-century German travel narrative.

Who was the author, Schefer?

Leopold Schefer (1784–1862) was a German writer with a varied life; he long served as a private tutor and travelled widely, and his work includes poetry and narrative prose. This material provides only his dates and the attribution of the work; readers wanting a fuller biography should consult reliable literary-historical sources.

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About the author

Schefer, Leopold, 1784-1862 Author

Leopold Schefer (1784–1862) was a German writer whose life and identity are documented only to a limited extent in publicly available sources; seven of his works are held in this collection. His writing spans novels and narrative prose, with themes often involving migration, disaster, festivals, and personal growth, as seen in Die Deportirten, Der Waldbrand, and Der Hirtenknabe Nikolas, which centers on the Children's Crusade. These works typically follow ordinary people through moral trials and inner transformation, giving them an uplifting, coming-of-age quality. Other titles, such as Achtzehn Töchter and the two parts of Die Osternacht, show his interest in women's fates and religious seasonal themes. Overall, his style is plain and attentive to narrative pacing and human circumstance, and he remains little known among Chinese readers.